


Brought Into A Bookshop

by fractalgeometry



Series: Nadia’s (probably magical) Queer Haven [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, M/M, Multi, POV Outsider, Queer Guardian Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Queer Guardian Demon Crowley (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalgeometry/pseuds/fractalgeometry
Summary: Luca’s day - and life - has gone downhill very rapidly. Luckily their friend knows some people who might be able to help. Those people are every bit as weird as they sounded from the description...but it turns out that they can - and will - help.Maybe Luca will be all right after all.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens) & Original Character(s), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Nadia’s (probably magical) Queer Haven [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898320
Comments: 36
Kudos: 292





	Brought Into A Bookshop

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea partway through writing the first story in this series, [Fell Into A Bookshop,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141461) because I wanted to see someone encounter the bookshop and its occupants in the company of another human who already knew them. So here is the story of how Luca, Nadia’s friend, met Aziraphale and Crowley.

Nadia’s phone buzzed in her hand, the comic she was reading suddenly obscured by the caller ID. She tapped the green button.

“Hey there.”

“Nadia?” Luca sounded as though they’d been crying.

Nadia sat up from her comfortable lounge. “Yeah, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

“I’m not on speaker, right?”

“No, I’m by myself. What _is_ it?”

A pause. “My parents kicked me out.”

“Oh, damn. Why?”

“They read my texts, and I guess I’d let something slip. Turns out they’re not fans of the whole agender thing.” 

Nadia blew out a breath slowly. She wasn’t surprised, but it was still an unpleasant turn of events. 

“Do you have any idea what I should do?” Luca asked. “I’m at the park near my house, but I can’t stay here.” They sounded like they might start crying again, and Nadia couldn’t blame them.

Luckily, she _did_ have an idea. “I’ll come get you. I know some people who might be able to help.”

“Okay.”

“Hang in there, Lu. See you soon.”

“See you,” her friend echoed.

The phone went quiet, and Nadia stuffed it into her pocket. Well. It looked like she’d be going out this afternoon. She just had to convince her parents.

~

Luca sat in the grass, watching people out on their afternoon walks, and brooding. _Brooding_ may not have been the most accurate term, perhaps, but Luca far preferred it to others they had come up with, like _panicking_ and _trying not to cry again._ Their backpack sat on the ground beside them, looking every minute of its six years. Or maybe that was just Luca projecting. 

Luca buried their face in their knees. It wasn’t supposed to come to this! They were supposed to fly under the radar for a couple more years, playing the part of the good, gender-conforming child they weren’t, and then saunter off into the sunset to do their own thing as soon as they were able. Only now they couldn’t saunter, and they weren’t able to do their own thing. Instead they were fleeing, like a squirrel that’s seen a cat, sitting in a park with nothing but a backpack and a phone.

Nadia was coming, at least. If there was one person Luca could trust in this whole mess, it was Nadia. She even sounded like she had a plan, which was more than Luca had at the moment. 

“Lu! Luca!”

Speak of the devil. Luca raised their head and looked around to see Nadia coming toward them, curly dark hair flying out around her head as though she hadn’t brushed it in days. Her eyebrows were drawn together and she sounded out of breath.

“Hi,” they said, sounding wan even to their own ears. 

“Hey,” Nadia said, plopping down on the grass beside Luca. She studied them for a moment, then said, “Hug day or not?”

Luca considered this. “Side hug?”

“Of course.” Nadia scootched closer and put her arm around Luca’s shoulders. They put one around her waist in turn, pressing their sides together. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Luca dropped their head to rest on their friend’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”

“The only way I wouldn’t is if I physically couldn’t get here,” Nadia said. “Do you want to talk about it, or are you up to moving? We do have a bus ride ahead of us.”

“I can go. Where are we going?”

“To see some people I met a little while ago. They’re pretty quirky, but in a good way. They’ll help.”

“How?”

Nadia looked momentarily stumped. “Don’t know, exactly,” she admitted. “But they’re very nice, and very queer, and there’s just no way they _won’t_ help.”

Luca gave her a quizzical look, but it wasn’t like they had any better options. Besides, quirky and queer might be just what they were looking for, especially if Nadia liked whomever it was. They slipped a backpack strap on and stood up, offering Nadia a hand.

She took it and rose to her feet. “Let’s go.”

~

Luca initially balked at the bus, pointing out that they didn’t have much money and would probably be needing every bit of it soon, but Nadia rolled her eyes and passed them some coins. 

“I can absolutely pay for your bus fare a time or two,” she said. “I was planning on it anyway.”

So they got on the bus, and rode it to Soho, which was unsurprising, and throughout the ride Luca told Nadia the basics of how they had ended up indefinitely homeless on short notice. Nadia listened, and looked tense, and protective, and worried, and Luca felt very, very aware that the two of them were really only a pair of children with very few resources available to them. 

After the bus ride and a short walk, they ended up in front of a vaguely dusty-looking, decidedly closed bookshop. Nadia marched up to the door and tried the handle. The door stayed shut.

“I think it’s closed,” Luca said nervously.

“It’s always closed,” Nadia said, a touch sharply. She peered in through the glass and added, seemingly to herself, “Really, I _texted_ Crowley.”

Luca really wanted to ask who “Crowley” was, but decided they would find out soon enough. Assuming Nadia’s mysterious friend was even in, which it was beginning to look like wasn’t the case.

Nadia rapped on the door, then pulled out her phone. She had just begun animatedly typing something when the door made a _click_ noise and opened. 

“Oh, _good,”_ Nadia said, sounding relieved. “I was wondering if you had gone out. I have a little bit of an emergency.”

“So you said,” a vaguely drawling voice said from inside. “I trust you’d have told me if there was immediate danger?”

“Yeah. It’s just...complicated stuff,” Nadia said, and went inside. “Come on, Luca.”

Luca followed, more than a little hesitantly, into a dim room filled with bookshelves. There was an empty area immediately inside the door, but other than that all they could see were bookshelves. And books, of course. They filled the shelves and spilled to the floor, as well as covering the few non-bookshelf pieces of furniture Luca could see. The person who had let them in was definitely a grown-up, which put them immediately on edge, but not quite like any grown-up Luca knew. They were tall, and thin, and red-haired, and dressed like the kids at school who were trying to look cool, except that whoever this was could pull it off. And they were wearing sunglasses. Indoors. For no apparent reason.

“Luca, this is Crowley,” Nadia said. “Crowley, this is my friend Luca. They’re...having some problems, and I hoped you guys could help.”

“Luca,” Crowley said consideringly, before Luca had even finished tensing nervously over Nadia’s use of their pronoun. “Glad to see Nadia knows at least _one_ other human.”

 _“Rude,”_ Nadia huffed, and Crowley cackled.

“I would say I’m kidding, but I’m not. Anyway, yeah, I’m Crowley.” Crowley hesitated briefly, seemingly looking Luca over, then added, “They/them pronouns for me today, thanks. Aziraphale’s upstairs somewhere. I’ll get him down. You two head on back.”

They turned and headed for the stairs, not seeming to notice how completely blindsided Luca was. Or maybe it wasn’t obvious. It certainly _felt_ like the very earth had just shifted under their feet. Who _was_ this casual, cool person who lived in a bookshop and introduced themself with they/them pronouns as though it were the easiest thing they had ever done? 

Nadia was looking at them sympathetically. “Just wait till you meet Aziraphale,” she said. “He’s a lot too. But, like, a good lot. I think-” she hesitated, the way she did when she was about to be vulnerable. “They make it seem like things’ll be okay someday. For us. You’ll see.”

“Did they just-” Luca asked faintly. “I mean- they’re an adult. An actual one, like they must be at least forty. And they- are they like me?”

“Kind of?” Nadia said. “You’ll have to ask them. I don’t understand the nuances. Crowley will discuss what they call ‘human constructs of gender’ all day if you want, though.” She grinned, suddenly, and Luca wondered what their face was doing. They weren’t surprised that it was amusing. “Come on. There’s a sofa back here and we can sit down.”

~

Once they were seated, Nadia asked, “Do you want to tell them what’s up with you, or do you want me to do it?”

“Will you?” Luca asked, feeling pathetic. “I just-”

“They’re strangers, I get it,” Nadia said.

“Stick to the basics, okay?”

“Of course. I’m just looking to get you safe, and I think they should be able to help with that. Details are up to you.”

“Thanks.”

Luca sat back and clutched their backpack to their chest. Nadia gave them a smile, and then footsteps were approaching, and Crowley returned, along with a shorter, rounder person with short, curly white hair and bright blue eyes. 

“I’m Aziraphale. He/him,” he said, smiling kindly. 

“Luca,” Luca said. “Um. They/them.” 

They watched the adults nervously for signs of distaste, but all that happened was they sat — well, Aziraphale sat and Crowley flopped — in the pair of armchairs that finished off the seating area. 

“So,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley said you had something important to talk about?”

“She _said_ emergency,” Crowley said. “Which you heard, else you’d have gone and made tea and probably gotten out a snack, and-”

“Yes, you did say that,” Aziraphale agreed. “Nadia? Luca?”

Nadia glanced at Luca, who nodded.

“Well,” Nadia said. “Luca is- uh- they use they/them pronouns, obviously, they said that, and their parents found out-”

Aziraphale’s mouth tightened, and Crowley sat up, leaning forward on the arm of their chair. Neither of them interrupted.

“And that didn’t go so well,” Nadia continued. “So now they don’t have anywhere to live, and I’d offer to have them stay with me — I _wish_ they could stay with me — but it’s only a matter of time before their parents go to my parents for ‘support’, and then they’d be right back where they are now.”

“And maybe dragging her with me, if it goes badly enough,” Luca broke in, unwilling to let this point be glossed over.

“So I said we should come to you, because you- like- you’re safe, and you’ll make sure we’re okay. Right?” Her voice went high on the last word, and Luca realized that Nadia had been very carefully holding herself together this whole time, and now she had reached the end of her last idea, and all of their plans now depended on the two strange grown-ups in front of them.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, in the tone of one who understands exactly what he is dealing with. _“That_ kind of emergency.”

“Can you help?” Nadia asked, and her voice was definitely a little wobbly now.

“‘Course we can help,” Crowley said. “Do you really think either of us would leave a queer kid out in the cold, ever?”

“It’s not very cold right now,” Nadia pointed out.

“Do you?” Crowley pushed.

“No,” Nadia murmured.

“You know us better than that,” Crowley agreed. “Else you wouldn’t have come here. So. Let’s get Luca a safe place to set up.”

“How old are you, dear?” Aziraphale asked.

“Seventeen,” Luca said, a little dizzy from the conversation bouncing around them. 

“Have you been planning how you’ll move away from your parents at all? It’s fine either way, mind, just useful to know whether you have plans that can be adapted.”

“A bit.” Luca hesitated. “I have a part-time job now, and I talked to my boss about making it full-time after I’m out of school. That way I should be able to afford to rent a flat with some roommates or something. I’ll go from there. But…”

“But the end of school isn’t close enough to be able to go full-time just yet,” Aziraphale finished. “That makes perfect sense. Crowley?”

“I’d call Miren,” Crowley put in, back to lounging. “I think her room is free, and Luca sure sounds like they qualify.”

“Excellent! You always were better at remembering who’s available.” Aziraphale beamed at Crowley. “I’ll go call, then, unless you want to?”

“Go ahead.” Crowley waved a hand. “People like you.”

“They like you too.”

Crowley made a skeptical noise, and Aziraphale gave them a reproachful look.

“Um,” Luca said, drawing attention back to them. “What do I qualify for?”

“Aziraphale and I have sort of a net of people,” Crowley explained. “They’ve all got an extra room or two, and the means to let people in your kind of situation live there rent-free until they get on their feet. You obviously don’t have to accept, and we’re happy to go with you the first time to make sure you’re comfortable living there, but it’s a decent option.”

“Oh. So I...wouldn’t have to pay rent? While I finish school?”

“Nope!” Crowley grinned. “Just like living with your parents. Except not at all like that, because the very reason you can’t live with your parents anymore is the reason you’re being offered this place to stay.”

 _“Better_ than living with my parents,” Luca mumbled, before they could stop themself.

“Shall I call, then?” Aziraphale asked Luca.

“It’s really okay?”

“It really is.”

“Then yes, please. That would be wonderful.”

Aziraphale left the room, and Luca looked at Nadia. She smiled at them, looking a little sad.

“What’s wrong?” Luca murmured.

Nadia waved a hand dismissively, glancing at Crowley.

“I can leave,” they offered.

“Nah,” Nadia said. “I just- it would be nice to not have to hide this kind of stuff when I’m at home.”

“You can come visit,” Luca said quickly. “Probably. If this works out.” Now they glanced at Crowley.

Crowley shrugged. “Visitors are something you work out with your roommate. Can’t imagine anyone forbidding them entirely, though. Most you’d have to do is work out a schedule.”

Schedules were easy. Luca could do schedules. They turned back to Nadia. “See?”

Nadia smiled a little. “That sounds like fun.”

Just then Aziraphale returned. “You were right, Miren’s room is available,” he told Crowley. “We can get you moved in today, if you’re ready,” he added in Luca’s direction.

Ready? Luca wasn’t ready. They weren’t ready for any of this. Six hours ago they had been at home, reading a book. They hadn’t been planning to move out for months yet. 

Then again...they had just met an openly nonbinary adult, and they were going to live somewhere new where they might just be able to be openly nonbinary themself. Given the circumstances, things were looking up.

Luca gave the other three a small smile. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

~

That night, lying on sheets that smelled of someone else’s detergent, in a neat but sparsely decorated room in an almost-messy flat whose entry hall sported a full-size rainbow flag, Luca cried. They cried tears of sadness over the home they had left, and over their parents’ inability to see anything but their queerness. They cried tears of relief that they had a roof over their head and a bed to sleep in despite that. And finally they cried tears of something else — hope, maybe, or excitement — at the possibilities that had opened ahead of them today, and at the kindness of the strangers (new friends?) who had helped them already. 

And then, when the tears finally stopped, they picked up their phone and sent a single text to their old friend, the person without whom none of the other good things would have happened.

_To: Nadia_

_thanks :)_

Then Luca turned over, buried their face in the pillow that smelled of strangeness and change and hope, and fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked our new character. Let me know what you think!


End file.
